


The Lives That I Have Loved

by dance_across



Series: Corners, Edges, Monsters, Myths [2]
Category: due South
Genre: Gen, Ghosts, Haunting, Post-Call of the Wild
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-03
Updated: 2016-02-03
Packaged: 2018-05-17 23:21:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,267
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5889082
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dance_across/pseuds/dance_across
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Victoria has her own reasons for having visited Ben Fraser the other night.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Lives That I Have Loved

**Author's Note:**

> This is your official warning that this is really, really not a stand-alone story.
> 
> Title from "Haunted" by Poe. (The singer/songwriter, not Edgar Allan....)

Getting to Eagle Plains was kind of a bitch, but things got easier after that—mostly thanks to a trucker who let her hitch a ride for two hundred bucks, and stopped asking questions for another fifty. She found a new driver in a parking lot in Dawson City, conveniently heading down to Whitehorse. From there, if her luck held, there’d be a boat waiting that would eventually land her back in Mexico.

It would’ve been a piece of cake—or far easier than she’d counted on, at least—except that Beth wouldn’t shut up for the entire trip.

First it was, “A threesome? That was just _depraved_ , Vicki. Honestly, what were you thinking?”

To which Victoria replied, “ _I’m_ the depraved one? You’re the one who stopped by to watch. Uninvited, I should add. And stop calling me Vicki. God, I’m just glad none of us could see you….”

Then, a few hours later, “I still think you should’ve spoken to that man in Juneau, instead of just sneaking around his house like a creep. _Vicki_.”

“I told you,” Victoria said. “He was a witness at my trial twenty years ago. He probably doesn’t even remember what I look like. What was I supposed to do—remind him? How would that have helped?”

Then, as they paced the lot in Dawson City, waiting for someone who might be a good bet, “What about the old man in Yellowknife? He looked a little too glad to be rid of you.”

“Which is exactly how I know he won’t come after me. Did you see how relieved he looked when I promised I’d never find him again?” Victoria sighed. “To think how close I was to marrying that one. Wouldn’t have been worth it, even if he _did_ die and leave me his billions.”

And now, in the back of the truck, as Victoria makes herself a thin pallet among all the cases of beer, Beth says, “What about the one in Chicago?”

“We didn’t go to Chicago,” Victoria replies. “Or, wait, let me rephrase. _I_ didn’t go to Chicago, so _you_ didn’t follow me there.”

Crouched beside her, Beth’s quiet for a long time before she says, “That’s exactly what I mean.”

“What’s that, ghost logic?” Victoria laughs and curls her sweater into a ball. It’ll make a decent pillow. “I never want to see Chicago again.”

“I’m sure the feeling’s mutual,” Beth says wryly. “Seriously, though. The man who almost shot you? Shot Ben Fraser instead? What was his name?”

“Ray,” replies Victoria, feeling suddenly tired beyond belief.

Beth frowns. “Wait. Isn’t that Ben’s boyfriend _now_? You _fucked_ him and you didn’t tell me that was the _same guy_?” Victoria glares. And keeps on glaring, until Beth raises her palms in defeat. “Okay, yes, fine, it’s not _technically_ my business… but…”

“No,” says Victoria. “Not the same guy. The one he’s shacking up with is Ray Kowalski—and I did not fuck him, thank you very much. I blew him a little. He fiddled around with my tits. That was it.”

“You don’t have to be crude about it,” says Beth.

“Says the girl who watched.” Victoria raises an eyebrow. “Isn’t that incest? Or at least borderline?”

Beth shrugs.

Well, maybe things like that matter less when you’re dead.

“Anyway, that’s Kowalski. The one who shot him, that’s Ray Vecchio.”

“Huh,” says Beth. “That’s an improbable concentration of Rays, if you ask me.”

“I _didn’t_ ask you.”

Victoria stretches out on the makeshift pallet, arranging the sweater-ball under her head. She closes her eyes, hoping that’ll make Beth go… wherever Beth goes when she’s not haunting Victoria.

But then she asks, right next to Victoria’s ear, “Don’t you think you should find him? Vecchio, I mean?”

“No. Leave me alone.”

“Not until you tell me how you’re going to get to Chicago.”

“I’m not _going_ to Chicago.”

“The whole point of this trip—”

“The whole point of this trip,” growls Victoria, eyes flying open again as she sits up to face her sister, “is to make sure there’s nobody out there who still gives enough of a shit about me to track me down. And we’ve done that. Okay? We found Michel in Yellowknife, we found old Von Trier in Juneau. We found the judge. You even made me find _Cindy_ , yeah? Cindy from _prison_. She didn’t even _remember_ me, and I still made sure she was okay. And we found—we found—”

“Ben,” offers Beth, when Victoria’s voice gives out.

Victoria nods.

Ben.

For such a long time, she believed that he was hers. That they’d keep on torturing and loving and torturing and loving each other till death did them part, and it would be such a beautifully exquisite kind of hell. For such a long time, she believed it, wanted it, yearned for it. But now…

Now, Ben has a house. A partner. He goes to work and he buys groceries and his partner cooks and they wash dishes together. Sure, there’s the sex stuff, which is still a little kinky, if the other night was anything to go by… but Ben is _normal_ now. She’d looked at him, standing there in his bright, clean house, and she could barely see a hint anymore of the wild, snow-starved, imposing man who’d haunted her dreams nearly every night in her prison bunk.

Because now, Ben has Ray Kowalski. He doesn’t have to be wild anymore. He’s happy, or at least he seems to be.

And Victoria… well, Victoria has Felix Guerrera waiting for her in Mexico City. She has a chance at happiness, too.

“I made my peace with Ben, I think,” she says, finally. “And he with me. As long as he’s not still angry with me, I think Ray Vecchio will leave me alone.”

Beth is quiet for a second, but then, slowly, she nods. “If you say so.”

“I say so,” says Victoria, lying down and arranging her sweater-pillow again.

Beneath them, there’s a bump in the road. It jostles the truck, but Victoria doesn’t care. Beth, obviously, doesn’t feel it at all.

“Well,” says Beth with a sigh, “the deal still stands. If anyone hurts Felix because of you, I’m going to haunt you till the day you die.”

“You’re already haunting me,” Victoria replies wearily.

“No, I mean _real_ haunting,” says Beth. “I’ll become a poltergeist. I’ll become goddamn Bloody Mary, if I have to. You’ll never sleep again.”

“I’m not sleeping _now_ ,” Victoria points out.

That shuts Beth up. But only for a few minutes.

“Vicki?” she asks, in her quietest voice.

“Don’t call me that,” says Victoria irritably.

“Victoria,” says Beth. “Take care of Felix, all right? I… I don’t think I ever would’ve gotten through senior year without him. Or any of college at all, really.”

For a moment, Victoria wonders if her sister regrets having introduced her to Felix. She thinks about asking. But she doesn’t particularly want to know the answer, so she simply says, “I will.”

“Thanks,” says Beth. “Get some sleep, all right? I love you.”

“Love you too,” murmurs Victoria—and then, like a sudden shock of cold, she can feel Beth’s absence. Oh, sure, she’ll be back tomorrow, ready to chatter Victoria’s ear off again. But for now, she’s gone.

As Victoria lets the rumble of the road lull her to sleep, her thoughts drift sleepily to Felix. Twice he’s proposed to her already. Twice she’s said no. Twice he’s said he’ll give her time and ask again.

She’s taken all the time she needs.

The third time, she’ll say yes.


End file.
